Mister JayMac publicly thanked Henry during one of our Rolling Assizes for salvaging the road trip. Even so, he had Muscles fine every relief pitcher, pinch hitter, and starter who’d contributed to Saturday’s fiasco against Lanett. The only Hellbenders to escape fines were Snow, Nutter, Dobbs, and Henry. Even the Honorable Judge Lionel K. Musselwhite had to dig into his coin purse for a quarter, for turning a long fly ball into a triple by overrunning it and denting a signboard.

“Needless and catastrophic showboating,” prosecutor Buck Hoey called the play. “You let in two runs and bunged up your shoulder to boot. The captain ought to set us something other than a bad example.” You got the idea Hoey was disguising a reference to the dustup on Hellbender Pond between Muscles and Curriden. Anyway, nobody on the Bomber voted for clemency.

Darius didn’t say two words from his seat up front, and I couldn’t help wondering what kind of fine he’d draw for packing a concealed pistol. More than a quarter, I’d bet. In some places down here, he could’ve wound up decorating a tree just for leaving his fly at half-mast.

40

On Tuesday evening, the bigs played their first-ever night all-star game. Everyone in McKissic House heard the broadcast from Philadelphia over our cathedral Philco. Worldwide, U.S. servicemen listened with us over shortwave radios. Actually, Henry opted out of our party, the only resident Hellbender not on hand. He’d trudged upstairs to read, saying, “Baseball is not my entire life. In any case, at breakfast Mr Mariani will recount every pitch and putout.”

I missed Henry’s being there. Dunnagin sat on a folding chair next to me, but he and Creighton Nutter, who’d come over from Cotton Creek, picked at each other through the whole game. As an ex-Brownie, Dunnagin wanted the American League to win, while Nutter, an ex-Brave, rooted like crazy for Johnny Vander Meer and the senior-circuit Nats. Most of the rest of us, chattel of the Phutile Phillies, automatically sided with Nutter against Dunnagin. Vander Meer and Vince DiMaggio played like shining princes for their squad, but when the Americans won it five to three, Dunnagin danced around the parlor on his spindly gams. Darius spent the entire game leaning in the door to the dining room, but vanished a split second after the last broadcast play.

When I went up to tell Henry the outcome, he lay face down on his bed, softly wheezing away.

At Wednesday morning’s optional workout at McKissic Field, a major from the camp and a colored guy in a bottlefly-green jacket came onto the field just as I started to enter the batting cage. The major, a young guy with a razor slit of a mouth, put his hand on my arm.

“Excuse me, kid,” he said. “I’m Major Adrian Dexter. This is Mr Cozy Bissonette.”

I stared. That kid business burned me off. Major Dexter looked about twenty-six. Besides, visitors, outside of family and invited guests, had no standing ticket to our workouts.

“A stadium guard let us in,” Major Dexter said, nodding at the entrance tunnel. “We have an appointment.” I still didn’t speak. “With Mr Jordan McKissic, the owner and manager.” He pronounced the first name like the river-not JUR-dan, the way locals did. “Could you direct us to him, please?”

“We’d be decidedly grateful,” Cozy Bissonette said.

“C-cmon.” I led them to our dugout, where Mister JayMac sat with Darius, strategizing for our next away series.

Darius looked up, and he and Mr Bissonette each did a funny click thing with their eyes-almost a shutter snap, like a photographer catching a big-deal event and not just another family-album head shot. Major Dexter and Mister JayMac didn’t see it, and I couldn’t read it. It didn’t work only on the level of one colored greeting another, though; it also involved the sort of flash conspiracy that can happen between any two like-thinking persons, whoever they are. It scared me.

“Are we early?” Major Dexter said. “We could always-”

“Fine,” Mister JayMac said. “I’ll jes be a moment.”

I stayed there in the dugout, cat-curious and vexed, hoping to learn something.

“Go hit,” Mister JayMac told me. “I’ll handle the coaching details. You jes do what you’re paid for.” He gave me a face smile, with nothing but distracted cogitation behind it. I spike-walked back out to the batting cage.

That evening, Mister JayMac held a team meeting in the parlor. No flip charts. No recruits to introduce. No rules to review. Of the Cotton Creek bunch, Snow and Nutter seldom griped about anything, but Hoey, Sloan, Hay, and Sudikoff waltzed in bellyaching, having earlier supposed they’d have the whole day to themselves. They put a lid on it when they saw Mister JayMac impatiently pacing the hardwood.

“This shouldn’t take too long,” he said. “We’ve got a vote to take.”

“I vote no,” Hoey said. “Whatever it is.”

“ ‘Be it resolved,’ ” Dunnagin said, “ ‘that we refrain from castrating Buck Hoey the next time he fans with men on base.’ ”

Even Hoey laughed. (Henry only smiled, but, given it was Henry, count it a laugh.)

“This shouldn’t take long unless every one of yall insists on auditioning for The Grape Nuts Hour.” Mister JayMac said.

We ditched our smirks. Darius, I noticed, leaned exactly where he’d leaned during the all-star game.

“This morning, the business manager of a barnstorming club of Negro ballplayers, the Splendid Dominican Touristers, and an Army major from the-”

“Whoa,” Hoey said. “The who?”

“The Splendid Dominican Touristers. Some Negro leaguers under a rubric de guerre, so to speak.”

“Sounds like an order of stuck-up traveling monks,” Turkey Sloan said.

“Shut up, Sloan,” Vito Mariani said.

Before an argument could break out, Mister JayMac said, “Hush.” Everybody hushed. “The Negro American League-the Black Barons from over to Birmingham, the Memphis Red Sox, the Cincinnati Clowns, and so on-well, gas rationing’s hit these clubs hard. They’ve done finished a full split season. Their teams only had to play thirty games to qualify for the Negro World Series. Anyway, Mr Cozy Bissonette of Kansas City, Missouri, has assembled a group from some of the NAL’s better players, and he’s seeking exhibition opponents in advance of the club’s official formation in Atlanta early next week.”

“And the coon wants to play us?” Jerry Wayne Sosebee said.

Darius had his arms folded and his gaze fixed on a knot-hole in the floor’s oak planking. Sosebee didn’t see him, though; Darius was invisible to Sosebee.

“What about this Army major?” Muscles asked Mister JayMac.

“Major Dexter. First Battalion, Camp Penticuff Special Training Regiment. He wants to sponsor a contest between Mr Bissonette’s all-stars and us, a morale booster to kick off the club’s barnstorming tour.”

“Sir, Georgia law doesn’t allow whites and coloreds to play pro ball against each other in public,” Sloan said.

“That’s why, if yall vote to do it, we’d do it out to Camp Penticuff, where it wouldn’t be so public. For the biggest part, our spectators would be the Negro GIs of the two Special Training battalions out there.”

“Jesus,” Sosebee said.

“What’s in it for us?” That was Reese Curriden. Sometimes you could hear pocket change in his chuckles.

“The Army, Major Dexter says, has offered a payment of five hundred dollars to each club, to divvy however we choose.”

“Twenty-five bucks apiece!” Quip Parris cried happily.

“I vote yes,” Hoey said. “Whichever way we divvy it.”

“I’d recommend returning the money as a contribution to the war effort,” Mister JayMac said.